Barby bade her good-night and left her. But Fleda's musing mood was gone. She had no longer the desire to call back the reminiscences of the old walls. All that page of her life, she felt, was turned over; and after a few minutes' quiet survey of the familiar things, without the power of moralizing over them as she could have done half an hour before, she left them--for the next day had no eyes but for business.
It was a trying week or two before Mr. Rossitur and his family were fairly on shipboard. Fleda as usual, and more than usual,--with the eagerness of affection that felt its opportunities numbered and would gladly have concentrated the services of years into days,--wrought, watched, and toiled, at what expense to her own flesh and blood Mrs. Rossitur never knew, and the others were too busy to guess. But Mrs. Carleton saw the signs of it, and was heartily rejoiced when they were fairly gone and Fleda was committed to her hands.
For days, almost for weeks, after her aunt was gone Fleda could do little but rest and sleep; so great was the weariness of mind and body, and the exhaustion of the animal spirits, which had been kept upon a strain to hide her feelings and support those of others. To the very last moment affection's sweet work had been done; the eye, the voice, the smile, to say nothing of the hands, had been tasked and kept in play to put away recollections, to cheer hopes, to soften the present, to lighten the future; and hardest of all, to do the whole by her own living example. As soon as the last look and wave of the hand were exchanged and there was no longer anybody to lean upon her for strength and support, Fleda shewed how weak she was, and sank into a state of prostration as gentle and deep almost as an infant's.
As sweet and lovely as a child too, Mrs. Carleton declared her to be; sweet and lovely as she was when a child; and there was no going beyond that. As neither this lady nor Fleda had changed essentially since the days of their former acquaintanceship, it followed that there was still as little in common between them, except indeed now the strong ground of affection. Whatever concerned her son concerned Mrs. Carleton in almost equal degree; anything that he valued she valued; and to have a thorough appreciation of him was a sure title to her esteem. The consequence of all this was that Fleda was now the most precious thing in the world to her after himself; especially since her eyes, sharpened as well as opened by affection, could find in her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her personally, country and blood Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry, the strongest wish she had known for years, had grown so despairing that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care, as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good-breeding could teach. And Fleda needed both, for she was slow in going back to her old health and strength; and stripped on a sudden of all her old friends, on this turning-point of her life, her spirits were in that quiet mood that would have felt any jarring most keenly.
The weeks of her first languor and weariness were over, and she was beginning again to feel and look like herself. The weather was hot and the city disagreeable now, for it was the end of June; but they had pleasant rooms upon the Battery, and Fleda's windows looked out upon the waving tops of green trees and the bright waters of the bay. She used to lie gazing out at the coming and going vessels with a curious fantastic interest in them; they seemed oddly to belong to that piece of her life, and to be weaving the threads of her future fate as they flitted about in all directions before her. In a very quiet, placid mood, not as if she wished to touch one of the threads, she lay watching the bright sails that seemed to carry the shuttle of life to and fro; letting Mrs. Carleton arrange and dispose of everything and of her as she pleased.
She was on her couch as usual, looking out one fair morning, when Mrs. Carleton came in to kiss her and ask how she did. Fleda said better.
"Better! you always say 'better'," said Mrs. Carleton; "but I don't see that you get better very fast. And sober;--this cheek is too sober," she added, passing her hand fondly over it;--"I don't like to see it so."
"That is just the way I have been feeling, ma'am--unable to rouse myself. I should be ashamed of it, if I could help it."
"Mrs. Evelyn has been here begging that we would join her in a party to the Springs--Saratoga--how would you like that?"
"I should like anything that you would like, ma'am," said Fleda, with a thought how she would like to read Montepoole for Saratoga.